Spiffy:

Iffy:

The action is a bit disappointing; very few characters are voiced by their real-life counterparts.

Before I get into the meat of this preview, I should note that there will be some spoilers for anyone who is just getting into the television show "Lost". I'll do my best not to ruin anything for those fans that have just grabbed the first or second seasons on DVD, although I'm not going to promise anything. When the Lost game was announced last year, everyone wondered how it would fit into the deep mythology crafted by the show's writers. Would we be playing as one of the main characters, or would the game's hero be one of the random survivors seen in the background of every episode? While our recent trip to Ubisoft didn't provide all of the answers we were looking for, we do feel a bit better about the game itself.

Lost: Via Domus tells the tale of Elliott, a photojournalist that was on the ill-fated Oceanic Flight 815. The game kicks off with the crash, although it appears that it may have actually saved our hero from an assassin that was onboard. You see, Elliott has some powerful enemies, thanks largely to his work uncovering the truth behind some notable atrocities. He may or may not have been the cause of his former girlfriend's death at the hands of those enemies, although he's got a little problem with his memory. Namely, he can't remember anything before the crash. It's up to you to piece together Elliot's shattered memory, learn the truth, and find a way to deal with the assassin that also survived the crash.

The first thing longtime fans of the show will notice is that Via Domus' presentation is ripped straight from the actual program. For instance, the first thing we saw when starting the game was Elliott's eye opening, which was the same way we were introduced to many of the characters. The game itself is about 10-12 hours long, and it's broken up into seven different "episodes" of varying length. As is the case with the TV show, the beginning of each episode will feature brief "Previously on Lost..." synopsis, and the action will abruptly end with that familiar black screen and "closing" sound.

From what we saw, it looks like Via Domus will be closer to a traditional adventure game than the action/adventure title that many of us expected, although that may not really be a bad thing. After all, the show itself is more of a mystery with intermittent snippets of action, and the game captures this perfectly. For instance, during the moments we saw, Elliott had to talk the Losties we all know and love into helping him in some way. In order to gain the upper hand on them (and, by extension, get what he wanted), he attempted to access some lost memories via flashback.